Top 5 Wedding Planning Errors to avoid:

1. Remember you have a budget.

Couture gown completely rebuilt for tznius:  $5000

Chiffon and roses draped Chuppah:    $3000

Exotic and out of season flowers at every table:  $8000

Black-tie seated prime grill dinner for your 300 closest friends and relatives: $40,000

Going into debt to pay for it:  Painful.

You don't want to start your married life off in debt because you went overboard on the wedding. Decide your total budget in advance, and WRITE IT DOWN in the place where you're keeping all your wedding documents. Then decide on your priorities; maybe you'd rather have it at a fabulous hall than spend a fortune on your gown. Or maybe you'd rather have a live band for 6 hours rather than serve 15 kinds of wine. Whatever your priorities, make sure they stay within your budget. For help on budgeting, try to remember the general rule: 50% of your budget should be earmarked for site and food; 10% for flowers, 10% for photography; 10% for music; 10% for stationery (Ketubah, invitations, benchers, Kippot); 10% for everything else, including attire, wedding rings, and transportation. Break down your budget this way first. While your priorities are likely different from the standard, it is far easier to see where you want to move money around once you've written it out. For example, $4000 might seem ridiculous for stationery, but you could use the extra money for the special flowers you absolutely must have.  

2. Being disorganized

The day of your wedding, you don't want to be ruffling through piles and piles of paper trying to find the contract where you know your caterer promised you 22 tables covered in gold lame as opposed to the 20 covered in gold chiffon he has presented you with. Or perhaps you're meeting with your florist and you just can't find the picture you clipped out of the most perfect bouquet ever created. As you plan your wedding, there will be lots and lots of paper. Not only pictures of all the pretty dresses, flower arrangements and food ideas, but exceedingly important documents like your contracts with vendors which layout precisely what their obligations to you (and vice-versa) are. And you need a system for keeping track of all that paper. Our preferred organization method is the binder/folder system, which has sections and folders by vendor-type. For example, in the section for florists would have paper with your random notes about who needs what sort of bouquet (i.e. Grandma can't wear a corsage of orchids because they'll make her sneeze or 6 bridesmaid bouquets, 8 boutonnières, 1 bridal bouquet, and 1 flower girl basket), a folder to keep track of all the floral-related pictures you rip out of magazines or print out off the Internet, and finally a folder for the contract (though the pictures and contract can probably go in the same folder).  Do this for every type of vendor you will be dealing with (Attire, hair/makeup, site, caterer, flowers, music, photography, transportation, etc.) and you won't have any trouble finding what you need.

3. Postage on invitations

There are few things more embarrassing than opening the door to your mailman who hands you a huge stack of invitations- all returned to sender for insufficient postage. It’s eight weeks until your wedding and all your lovely envelopes are marred with that awful stamp. You need to reorder the envelopes, which not only will cost you a considerable amount of money, can also take a considerable amount of time.

4. You need more than a Ketubah - you need a civil marriage license

Doesn’t matter how beautiful your Ketubah is, how reliable your edim (witnesses) are, how perfect the ring is, following halacha (Jewish law) and forgetting about the secular laws is a surefire way to get yourself into trouble. By law, clergy cannot perform a religious marriage if you don’t have a civil marriage license. State rules regulating marriage licenses vary by state, so check it out well in advance. In New York , no blood tests are currently needed (though check because these things can change), and your license is good for 30 days with a waiting period. This means you have a 30 day period from the day you apply in which the license is valid, but make sure you apply early enough so the waiting period is over: your wedding must take place after the waiting period, but before the end of the 30 days or you’ll need to reapply.

5. No dieting once you begin your dress fittings, etc.

You’ve spent a small fortune on the perfect wedding gown, so you want it to fit, right? Make sure you’re out of the “weight loss” phase of your diet plan and into the “maintenance” phase: losing additional weight after the dress has been fitted means your gown won’t fit properly, which won’t show off your beautiful figure. This applies to your bridesmaids as well.